It’s a rare example of English being simpler than other languages, so I’m curious if it’s hard for a new speaker to keep the nouns straight without the extra clues.

  • @umbraroze
    link
    65 hours ago

    I’m a Finnish speaker. Nouns aren’t gendered in Finnish either, so that’s not weird.

    Things that do trip me up:

    • Pronouns (lack of T/V distinction (i.e. just one “you”) and gendered third person)
    • Articles (Finnish doesn’t have articles as such, so adding them sometimes takes some brainpower)
    • so freaking many irregular verbs etc
    • seriously what is this orthography even (Finnish grammar may be complex, but the same can’t be said of the pronunciation)

    Actually, I’m learning French right now and gendered nouns aren’t even that much of a problem. I was dreading the numerals more.

  • @[email protected]
    link
    fedilink
    46 hours ago

    For the most part I don’t think about it at all. I guess you only consider things when they cause extra effort, in this case it mostly doesn’t so it’s very unconscious. That said, I generally use the few gendered ones I know (I listed in another comment) because it is the way my native language works.

    By the way, from grammar perspective English is a very simple language. Compared to similar languages (French, Italian etc.), for example, verbs are much simpler too. The harder part of English I think has to do with pronounce.

  • @[email protected]
    link
    fedilink
    56 hours ago

    There used to be Doctor/Doctrix, actor/actress, etc but it has gone by the by in the last few decades. There’s still dog/bitch, ram/ewe, cow/bull etc.

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      56 hours ago

      I still use actress, does that make me sound weird? Same for masseuse/masseur, waiter/waitress, hostess/steward (on a plane) and I can’t think of anything else right now.

      • @[email protected]
        link
        fedilink
        2
        edit-2
        2 hours ago

        Not a single word on that list would even ping on my radar if you said it near me, except for “Masseur.” If you said “Masseur” near me, I would think “oh, fancy.” -Native English speaker from SE USA

      • @[email protected]
        link
        fedilink
        15 hours ago

        Weird? Certainly not. To me it makes very little difference - although I understand the idea behind eliminating the male/female dichotomy. Stick with whatever you’re used to. As long as I understand what you say I don’t lose sleep over the words used. One more for the list: prostitute / gigalo.

  • @[email protected]
    link
    fedilink
    58 hours ago

    Swedish has genders, but not male/female but utrum/neutrum.

    These are not really rule bound, and has to be learned word by word.

    Some words are even double gendered but means different things depending on what gender is used.

    Example

    “En borr” / “borren” = a drill / the drill

    “Ett borr” / “borret” = a drill bit / the drill bit.

    But to answer your question, English is in many ways simpler than Swedish, you can specify any article by just putting “the” in front of it. In Swedish you need to select the proper -en/-et suffix with no real hard snd fast rule.

    Where english is annoying is compound words.

    “Realisationsvinstbeskattning” is the longest word in the Swedish dictionary, it is made up of three separate words,

    Realisation - Sale

    Vinst - Revenue

    Beskattning - taxation

    So the word simply means taxation on sale revenue.

    According to Guinness book of world records the longest Swedish from 2006 the longest Swedish word is:

    nordvästersjökustartilleriflygspaningssimulatoranläggningsmaterielunderhållsuppföljningssystemdiskussionsinläggsförberedelsearbeten

    But that is just ridiculous and looks like it comes from a report for the military where someone made the word because they could and enjoyed languages.

    Lets break it down into individual words

    nord-väster-sjö-kust-artilleri-flyg-spanings-simulator-anläggnings-materiel-underhålls-uppföljnings-system-diskussions-inläggs-förberedelse-arbeten

    I am on mobile and the word would take too long to translate here, but it means

    “Preparatory groundwork for the discussion on maintenance systems for materials used in the coastal artillery’s flight reconnaissance simulator covering the north western costal sector.”

    The issue with English for a Swedish speaker is the lack of compound words, making Swedes used to separating compound words when writing. Which can have fun results:

    Herrskjorta = mens button down shirts

    Herr skjorta = Mr. Skjorta

    Kassapersonal = Cashier

    Kassa personal = terrible staff members

  • tiredofsametab
    link
    fedilink
    27 hours ago

    Not all other languages have gendered nouns. Articles and affixes are usual points of pain I see (as someone who grew up in a monolingual English-speaking household), and of course the whole orthography mess with spelling is terrible (how can ough have like 6 or 8 pronounciations?!). If you want fun, some languages have distinctions between inanimate and animate things as well as cases that don’t exist in English as well if you want to look in fun other features.

    Edit: I meant to say prepositions. Affixes is often more in the other direction

  • ERROR: Earth.exe has crashed
    link
    fedilink
    English
    711 hours ago

    Technically English is my third languge, but also simultaneously my most fluent.

    In short, not confusing at all. Because in Chinese (any variation of Chinese) nouns are also not gendered.

    Pronouns in Chinese are also not gendered

    He = 他 (tā)

    She = 他 (tā)

    No confusion with pronouns either. My parents constantly say he when refering to a woman, or she when refering to a man, or mix them up while talking about the same person in the same conversation. No me tho, I never get confused. I learned English at like grade 2-3.

    • @Tkpro
      link
      010 hours ago

      What? She in Chinese is 她. It might not be used often but it definitely is gendered…

      • ERROR: Earth.exe has crashed
        link
        fedilink
        English
        5
        edit-2
        10 hours ago

        Nope. 她 isn’t really used. 他 is the pronoun, even if its refering to women.

        Like if you wrote 他 to refer to a woman in an essay on a test, it’d get marked as correct.

        Edit: Although, on the internet, people commonly type “TA” instead of “他”.

        Edit 2: So clarification

        他 refers to both men and women

        她 can only be used to refer to women, and this is rarely used, except maybe in english class to teach about the english pronouns

        它 refers to non humans, like animals or objects

        all 3 are pronounce the same exact way (tā)

        • HatchetHaro
          link
          fedilink
          08 hours ago

          hmm, idk man, over here 他 is only for men, and 她 is only for women.

          though in speaking we just use 佢 because canto

  • RachelRodent
    link
    fedilink
    312 hours ago

    in my language nouns aren’t gensered either so it was pretty easy

      • @[email protected]
        link
        fedilink
        17 minutes ago

        Because recognising when to use “a”, “the”, or 0 article is tricky.

        A/an is usually fine. 0 article and the are tricky, and then getting it right on the fly is hard.

        We take it all for granted and get it, but they’re hard for people who don’t have an equivalent in their first language.

      • @BrianTheeBiscuiteer
        link
        714 hours ago

        As the speaker of an English language me can tell you is not a difficult.

      • @JeremyHuntQW12
        link
        211 hours ago

        …because its the articles which are not gendered, not the nouns.

  • @frankenswine
    link
    1271 day ago

    not at all. it simplifies the learning experience by quite a bunch.

    one of the more confusing is learning other gendered languages where the gender of some object is different to the one in your mother tongue

    • Canadian_Cabinet
      link
      fedilink
      351 day ago

      To make matters worse, some languages have the exact same word but with a different gender. Heat in Spanish is el calor but in Catalán is la calor

      • @[email protected]
        link
        fedilink
        451 day ago

        To make matters even worse, in some languages the exact same word with different gender has different meaning.

        In German:
        “der Band”, male, = a (book) volume
        “das Band”, neutral, = ribbon
        “die Band”, female = (music) band

        Bonus: “die Bande” can be a gang, a sports barrier, and (relationship) ties.

    • @ZombiepirateOP
      link
      English
      131 day ago

      one of the more confusing is learning other gendered languages where the gender of some object is different to the one in your mother tongue

      That’s something I hadn’t really considered. Interesting!

    • thisisbutaname
      link
      fedilink
      121 day ago

      Yeah I basically never thought about the gender of English nouns because there’s very few reasons to

  • YTG123
    link
    fedilink
    1220 hours ago

    It’s not confusing at all, except in the very specific case of nouns referring to people or animals that don’t have gendered variants.

    For example, in my language, the word corresponding to “(a) sheep” has a masculine and feminine form, with the feminine used neutrally. Consequently, when seeing “sheep” in English, I assume the feminine and seeing it used with “he” is a bit of cognitive dissonance.

    Similarly, most words for human professions are by default masculine.

    • Mad_Punda
      link
      fedilink
      417 hours ago

      I remember reading a story written in English, and it kept mentioning „the cook“ (no pronoun, no name). My gender biased brain assumed the cook must be male. So I got confused when the pronoun „she“ finally appeared. I had to reread the paragraph to understand what was going on.
      Embarrassing and eye opening.

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      English
      318 hours ago

      Ive spent some times on farms and haven’t ever herd/used he for a singular male sheep before.

      If its a singular male I would say the ram.

      But its just normally sheep, generally female. If you want to be specific its weathers, ewes, lambs or rams.

  • @astanix
    link
    English
    517 hours ago

    As someone trying to learn Spanish I wish there was no gendering in Spanish. It makes the language significantly harder to learn.

  • @[email protected]
    link
    fedilink
    321 day ago

    no, we just learn that “der”, “die”, “das”, “den”, “dem” all translate to “the”

  • qyron
    link
    fedilink
    1021 hours ago

    Not.

    English is a very straigh forward to learn language.

    Now, an English native speaker learning a gender declining language… oh, how fun to watch.

      • qyron
        link
        fedilink
        418 hours ago

        I speak my native language for a couple of decades now and the more I speak it, the more I realize I don’t master it.

        I can read, write and hold a conversation in English. But if asked, I will say I can get by but very far from even the lowest level of mastery.

  • @TankovayaDiviziya
    link
    211 day ago

    If you want to be more confused, you should know that some languages have gendered verbs.

  • Caveman
    link
    1222 hours ago

    Not at all, it’s easier that other gendered languages since object genders get shuffled up.